


Nourishing Sammy

by Artsortment



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Childhood poverty and hunger, Contemplation of Suicide, Gen, casual fat shaming, implied childhood prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 16:13:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1434700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artsortment/pseuds/Artsortment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Season 8 we see that Dean can cook a mean burger, much to Sam's surprise. This fic chronicles Dean's relationship with cooking and doing his best to ensure those in his charge are well fed and taken care of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Motels

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta Bis! :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's only so much Dean can do to make sure Sammy gets the kind of food a growing kid should have with motel kitchenettes and minimal funds. But damn if he isn't going to try to give Sammy the best he can.

The first time John booked a motel with a kitchenette, Dean was excited. A few weeks prior he’d seen a cooking show featuring a dinner that didn’t look too complicated. “Perfect for growing kids” the show’s host had said. Dean remembered wishing he could make stuff like that for Sam, and the sinking feeling he’d gotten when he realized that he couldn’t. Since watching that first episode, Dean had caught a few more when Dad was gone and Sam was asleep, and had stared enraptured at the screen while the host talked about nutrition and healthy eating for children. He started hearing the host’s voice when he went to get food, listing off all the reasons the takeout or gass station fare were completely inappropriate meals for growing children. Every microwave sandwich or mini-mart snackfood felt like an indictment of Dean’s failure as a brother. There was nothing Dean could do about it, but that didn’t really make him feel any better. Not when Dad was relying on him to take care of Sammy. Not when Sammy needed Dean to make sure he grew up big and strong.

But now they were staying in a place with a real electric burner! Dean was already planning out a grocery list in his head to make all kinds of real meals for Sammy. The second Dad left, handing Dean a few bills and instructions to “take care of your brother. I’ll be back in a few days,” Dean bundled Sammy into his jacket and walked them both to the store. Dean helped Sammy into the child’s seat of the cart, worrying slightly about how they were going to get Sam out of it once they were done. But they didn’t have a stroller, and the walk over to the store had already tuckered Sam out, so it was either deal with a cranky Sammy, or let him sit in the cart. The very special job of “lookout” had pleased Sammy greatly - and it was highly necessary as Dean could barely see over the top of the cart. Sam squealed happily as Dean began pushing the cart through the large supermarket, entranced by the fruit and vegetable displays. It occurred to Dean that Sam had never been on a real grocery store trip. Not like the ones with Mom that held a special place in Dean’s memory where she would quiz him on the names of all the foods, and ask him to help her pick out which ones were freshest.

No sooner had they begun shopping when Dean realized his error. They didn’t have any supplies to actually prepare the food. It was one thing to have a burner, but they didn’t have pots or pans or spoons or any of the stuff necessary to actually make anything. He pushed the cart away from the produce, much to Sammy’s displeasure, and went to find the cooking supplies. He frowned, reading the prices and counting the bills from Dad in his pocket. Dad hadn’t expected to be gone long and hadn’t left them with much. Dean sighed, dejectedly, the pots were just too expensive. Discouraged, Dean pushed the cart out of the store and helped Sammy down out of the seat, even as the boy protested “but we just got here!”

As they were walking back to the motel, Dean spotted a Goodwill. He remembered seeing cooking stuff in a thrift store a few towns ago when they’d needed to buy Sam some pants that didn’t show his ankles. Hoping this one would have a similar selection of items, he led Sammy through the door. Dean’s face lit up when he saw that they had a whole section of kitchen supplies. Despite Sammy’s impatience with the process, Dean inspected every pot and spoon carefully, making sure they were in good condition and checking their prices. Eventually, Dean selected a small pot, big enough to make canned soup, and a large metal spoon. He passed them to Sammy who banged them together with glee. Dean couldn’t help but grin, even as another shopper glared at Sam’s behavior.

Having purchased cooking implements, the boys headed back to the grocery store, Dean’s determination to actually _make_ a meal renewed. He had to revise his meal plan, no longer having enough funds for what he had originally planned to make, but Campbell’s soup with some extra veggies thrown in would be better than another sausage breakfast sandwich for dinner. According to the TV, sausage was fatty, and too much fat could clog your arteries, whatever those were.

Dinner did not go well. Sammy was already grumpy from the shopping trip taking longer than expected, and turned up his nose at the vegetables, saying they were ‘icky.’ He ended up having leftover Lucky Charms for dinner while Dean ate the soup himself. The canned tomato soup Dean made the next day went over much better with Sammy, and Dean was very pleased at himself for finding something healthy for Sammy to eat. He was sure Dad would be very proud of him for taking such good care of Sam. John came home the next evening after his usual post-hunt night at the bar. Dean had run out of money, and forgone his own dinner in favor of making sure Sammy had his fill. He was hungry and tired, and happy to see his Dad who he hoped could be convinced to go out to grab burgers for dinner. John took one look at the pot and spoon Dean had purchased and lashed out. “No I will not go out and get you a burger! I’m fucking tired and if you hadn’t been an idiot and spent the money I gave you on stupid shit instead of food, you wouldn't be hungry! Consider going without dinner tonight a lesson on spending what I leave you better!” Dean stood silent in shock as John stormed into the adjacent bedroom and promptly passed out in a drunken stupor.

Dean kept meticulous care of that pot and spoon. He made sure it was always washed and put away by the time John came back, never offering to cook anything in it if the whole family was together for a meal. If John came to realize that being able to buy soups and other food to cook in the pot was cheaper than pre-packaged sandwiches and meals, he never said anything. He was not the sort of man willing to acknowledge his error in chastising Dean for purchasing the meager cooking implements. 

When Sam was 8 years old, he decided to cook Dean dinner for a change. After all, Dean had started cooking meals with the pot when he was Sam’s age. Dean returned home to find the small motel room full of smoke and Sam running water into the pot. When he saw Dean come in, Sam’s eyes filled with tears. He’d gotten side tracked watching a TV show and forgotten about the pot on the burner. Dean took the pot from Sam and inspected it. There was a small hole burnt through the cheap metal bottom. He bit down his anger and hugged his brother, assuring him it was the thought that counted and that he wasn’t upset. 

Dean came home the next day with a new pot that Sam knew Dad hadn’t left them enough money to be able to afford. It was a heavy bottomed pot made of much sturdier stuff, and Dean joked that it was “Sammy proof.” Dean never told Sam where the money for the nicer pot came from, and Sam never asked. Sam knew by then it was better to just pretend he bought Dean’s lie that Dad’s money paid for everything than question how his older brother was supplementing their income. Eventually, Dean got better at keeping the money away from where Sam could count it and Sam forgot that Dad’s ability to pay for his food and cloths ever came into question.

Not every place they stayed had a burner though, and Sammy had started to complain about Dean always making the same things. Pasta and soup were the best Dean could do with a single pot and spoon as his cooking tools, and Dean did not want to risk what John would say if he tried to buy a cook book to learn how to make anything else. So Dean started buying microwavable TV dinners to give Sam more variety when there was the money for it. It started off a bit like Russian Roulette if Sam would like the ones he bought or not - Dean eating the leftovers of ones that Sam turned his nose up at. Eventually, he figured out which ones Sam liked and didn’t like, and tailored his purchases accordingly. The TV dinners were more expensive than pasta or canned soups, but Dean wasn’t willing to go back to the cheaper gas station food for Sam if he could help it. The TV dinners came with veggies after all.

To save money feeding himself, Dean became a dollar meal expert. He quickly learned which chains had items for a dollar, and which didn’t, and at what places he could get the most food for only a few bucks. Dean set a strict food budget for himself each day, and if he was still hungry after he’d spent it, then that was just the way it was. He always told Sam he’d eaten at a friend’s house when he didn’t join Sam for meals in the motel. Dean became skilled at keeping his tone light and a smile on his face even when it felt like his stomach was trying to eat him from the inside. “Take care of Sammy” became a mantra that Dean clung to when the hunger pangs started to become unbearable. He was the older brother, and this was his job. If his discomfort meant Sammy was happy and healthy, then it was worth it. Sammy was worth it.

Every now and then, Dean would date a girl who thought it was a great idea to take him home for dinner to “meet the folks.” Even though he hated the song and dance of dodging questions about what his Dad did, or why he moved around so much, or god forbid, what his “plans for the future” were, he always accepted. Those nights he ate until he was full, and then some. The best times were when he got to take some food with him, a concerned mother noticing how much he was shoveling in his mouth and reacting with concern rather than disgust. Sammy always got all of the leftovers he brought back.

Dean both loved and hated when Sam got an invite to eat dinner at a friends house. Sammy always came back well fed and happy, which was good. But Dean hated listening to Sam going on about how amazing the food was, all the things his friends’ mother made, and how he wished they could have family dinners like that. Dean smiled and gritted his teeth, jealous at the ability of others to better provide meals for Sam than himself, and angry at the undercurrent of criticism of their family that he read in Sam’s exuberant praise of the other families. 

Once Sammy came back from Thanksgiving at a friends house practically gushing about how normal and wonderful the holiday had been there. Dean listened to Sam’s praise of this other family, getting angrier and angrier. All he could hear during Sam’s exuberant blow by blow of his close encounter with a real nuclear family holiday was ‘why can’t you make food like that?’ ‘you and Dad aren’t good enough’ ‘I’d be happier with that family than you and Dad.’ After half an hour of listening to how amazing this other family’s Thanksgiving was, Dean snapped. He screamed at a shocked Sam for five minutes, and stormed out of the motel room without waiting for a response. That night was the first time Dean tried to get into a bar on his own, and his childish features got him laughed out the door. It took an embarrassingly short amount of time to find some guys with less qualms about providing alcohol to minors, especially if Dean was willing to do them a favor in return.

When he came back two hours later, Sam was sitting quietly on the couch, head down and eyes red. Sam looked up at Dean with eyes starting to water, and brokenly apologized.

“I’m sorry Dean. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I won’t ever go over there again. Please don’t be angry.”

Dean felt horrible and pulled Sam into his arms making soothing noises.

“It’s okay Sammy. I was upset about something else and took it out on you, I promise, everything’s fine Sammy. You can always go over to friends houses. I’m sorry I yelled.” 

Later than night, as Dean watched some Thanksgiving special on TV he could care less about with Sam sleeping on his shoulder, he vowed he’d never let Sam be impacted by their food situation ever again. Sammy came first, and if that meant Dean had to deal with other people feeding Sam better than he could, he’d do it with a smile.


	2. The House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean learns to cook during the year with Lisa and Ben because of Sam. He was never able to feed or provide for Sam properly growing up, but he can do that for Ben. So he learns to cook and takes over meal prep from Lisa. She thinks it’s sweet, and her friends think it’s romantic. Dean doesn’t correct them because that story’s easier. It’s not really about her, or even Ben, at all. It’s about being able to finally nourish a kid he’s raising instead of just making sure he doesn’t starve. Dean throws himself into learning how to make great food as the only thing keeping him from going off the deep end in the wake of Sam’s death and essentially uses feeding Ben home cooked meals as a surrogate for doing the same for Sam, something he always wanted to do, but never could, and never will.

For the first month after Dean showed up at Lisa’s doorstep, he never left the house. How can you go out into the world pretending everything’s fine when you watched your baby brother take a swan dive into Hell? Dean was supposed to protect Sam. Sam was the one who was supposed to have a normal life. A civilian life with a woman and a kid was a farce of normalcy that Dean just couldn’t bring himself to play, no matter what he’d promised Sam.

Dean spent the days alone while Lisa was at work and Ben was at school watching television. He caught up on soaps and learned how truly awful daytime television was. Not that he was watching all that closely, it was mostly a background haze to give himself something other than the maelstrom in his head to focus on anyway. Lisa stopped asking what happened in shows she came in halfway through after the third time Dean couldn’t provide her with an answer. He was channel surfing one day when he came across a cooking show, and allowed himself to spiral into a pool of guilt as he watched it. The premise was easy healthy meals to make for a family, and, as the instructions washed over Dean in the woman’s chipper voice, he remembered all the times he hadn’t been able to feed Sam properly growing up. All the ways he’d let Sam down. How every day Sam ate cereal for dinner, or wore a coat that had lost its down, or pants that exposed his ankles he felt like a failure. Dad had told him to take care of Sam, and Dean hadn’t been able to something as basic as make sure Sam got the kind of food a growing kid should eat. This smiling woman on TV was making it look and sound so easy - how could Dean not have done that? How had Dean thought spaghetti, soups, and TV dinners were enough for a growing kid? And now Sam was trapped in Hell and Dean would never be able to make it up to him.

Dean turned off the television and grabbed a beer from the fridge and sat at the kitchen table, his guilt eating away at him. Not for the first time, he considered breaking his promise to Sam, and doing something about his continued survival while Sam languished in the pit. The shrill of the house phone ringing pierced his mantra of self loathing. He glanced at the caller ID, and only picked up when he saw it was Lisa calling.

“Hey Lisa.”  
“Hey Dean. How are you doing today?”  
“I’m fine. How’s work?”  
“It’s okay. But I’m going to have to stay late. Ben’s taking the bus home from school, but I won’t have time to make dinner. Can you order a pizza around 6?”  
“Sure thing.”  
“Thanks Dean, you’re the best.”

Dean hung up the phone and brought his beer to his lips. As he took a long pull of the beverage, he thought about the recipe he’d just seen on the show. It looked simple enough, and it would be much healthier than pizza. Besides, it was the least he could do to repay Lisa and Ben for letting him stay with them - especially since he wasn’t exactly pulling his weight around the house. Lisa had refused to let him pay rent with his usual cash procurement methods, and the feeling of being a moocher was eating at him. Dean poked around the cabinets and fridge - it looked like they had all the ingredients. He grabbed Lisa’s laptop and went to the show’s website to look up the recipe. It said it should take about an hour - prep included. Dean glanced at the clock on the wall. 3pm. If Lisa wanted him to order at 6, that meant she’d probably be home around 6:30 or 7. It’d probably take him longer than the hour the website promised because he didn’t exactly know his way around Lisa’s kitchen, so an hour and a half should be just right. That decided, he sat back down on the couch to watch a few hours of the Dr. Sexy MD marathon until it was time to get started.

When Lisa came home to see Ben setting the table and Dean serving a homemade casserole, she stood in the doorway briefly convinced she was in the twilight zone. “Wow! That smells amazing!” She walked in and gave Dean a kiss on the cheek as he finished dishing up the last plate. “How sweet of you.” 

Dean grinned at her, and for the first time since he’d shown up on her door, she saw a spark of the old Dean. “Well don’t get too excited. It’s my first time cooking anything more complicated than a can of soup.”

Lisa helped Ben finish setting the plates on the table and sat down. “I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.” She hoped it would end up being as good as it smelled - Dean taking the initiative to actually do something was a great sign. The last thing Lisa wanted was for this meal to not work out and Dean to return to the barely living state he’d been in for the past month.

She needn’t have worried. The meal was delicious and even got Ben to eat onions, which he usually hated. Lisa proclaimed the recipe a miracle and asked Dean to print it out for her. Dean nodded and smiled, and two hours later the casserole was added to Lisa’s yellow recipe book.

After that Dean became the designated dinner maker. Lisa was relieved to have that piece of stress taken off her plate - especially since work often ended up bumping right against dinner time. Dean learned his way around the kitchen quickly - watching cooking shows and youtube videos to learn more advanced techniques. Every time he came across a “single pot” recipe online, he wished the internet had been a thing when he was a kid. He could have made so much more for Sam growing up if he’d known recipes like these existed. Sometimes, Dean would try several varieties of the same recipe, trying to figure out how to make it perfect, writing notes in the margin of his print outs if he came across a variation he liked better than the original.

Dean also kept a running list of things he wanted to learn to make on a scrap paper in the kitchen - each item crossed off as he completed it. Lisa assumed the dishes were ones he’d seen on TV or read about in a magazine and never asked about them. Not that he would have told her they were Sammy’s favorites if she had. Dean wrote down what foods Sam would order when they went out to eat as kids. What his favorite TV dinners were (chicken pot pie and Swedish meatballs were some of the first things Dean learned to make). Or what Sam would come back raving about after having dinner at a friends house. “Mrs. Calvin makes the best meatloaf Dean! She puts spinach and cheese in it! It’s way better than the stuff they serve at Denny’s.” Dean fought the urge to down a beer at every memory of Sam happily recounting some stranger making the kind of food for him that Dean was never able to. It helped ease the guilt, learning how to make those things now, even though it was too little too late.

Dean took on grocery shopping as well, Lisa leaving him an envelope of cash each week to do with as he pleased to purchase supplies. It grated on Dean, taking her money, but she wouldn’t let him use his fake cards to buy things for them, saying it was a bad example for Ben, and what if he got caught? So he was resigned to using her money despite the fact that she was barely making ends meet. Every time he saw Lisa worrying over bills, it touched too close to the old guilt of not being able to properly provide for Sam. And it wasn’t like he could go back to the other tricks he used back when the money Dad left for them ran out. Not while living with Lisa and Ben. So he started reading through the classifieds, determined to provide for this family like he couldn’t for Sam. He wasn’t going to let Ben go without just because Lisa was having to use her paycheck to feed another mouth. Eventually, he found a part time construction job that paid in cash and didn’t look too closely at the fact that he didn’t have any kind of identification that would stand up to government level scrutiny. He was even able to negotiate leaving work in time to make dinner every night.

Lisa’s friends were completely enamoured with Dean’s cooking. They cooed over how romantic it was, and how they wished they had a man who know his way around the kitchen like Dean did whenever they came over to have coffee with Lisa. 

“Whenever I leave Rick in charge of feeding the kids, it’s all junk food! Even when he cooks it’s full of grease! You and Ben are so lucky Dean’s so health conscious!”

“He’s hot and he cooks? Damn girl you landed a 10!”

“He got Ben to eat vegetables? He has got to teach me his secret so I can use it on my kids. They’re so picky!”

Dean brushed off the praise, saying it was the least he could do since Lisa worked so hard, more than happy to encourage the assumption that he did it to romance Lisa. Lisa’s friends didn’t know it wasn’t her favorite dishes that Dean was learning to make. That “would Lisa like this?” wasn’t the first question Dean asked himself when looking at a new recipe. They didn’t know about the deep festering guilt Dean was carrying around regarding his younger brother. Hell, they didn’t know that he had a younger brother at all, and Dean planned to keep it that way. So he smiled, and pretended like he was freaking Casanova using food to win his fair lady’s heart. The pretending made the fact that the one person he really wanted to eat his meals never would easier to bear.

For Christmas, Ben got Dean a black binder he’d modified with a Chevrolet sticker on the front and tabbed pages on the inside to house all the recipes he printed out. That afternoon was spent ridding Lisa’s yellow recipe book of all his print outs and organizing them into his own by primary protein. Dean’s “to make” list migrated into his Chevy binder as well, tucked into the front pocket. The dinner he prepared that night was unanimously declared the best Christmas feast any of them had ever had, and Dean’s heart clenched, wishing Sam was there with them.

Nothing brought Dean more pride that year than watching Ben thrive, not even earning an honest living for once. Ben ate all of the food on his plate, not because he was hungry and it’s all there was, but because it tasted good. Dean never scolded Ben to finish his plate because he was relieving that Ben was able to eat his full, rather than finishing a meal still hungry. Ben laughed about how he was giving away bits of his lunch because Dean always packed him too much. Lisa teased Dean that he was spoiling Ben. That if Dean weren’t being so health conscious about the things he cooked, she’d be worried about Ben gaining weight from all the food Dean gave him. Feeding Ben was like a balm on Dean’s memories of fearing that Sam would go hungry and hunger pains from days when Dean went without food so Sam wouldn’t know how Dad had miscalculated how much money to leave for two growing boys again. He’s finally nourishing someone under his care, not just making sure they don’t starve. It brought him a measure of peace.

When Dean moved out for good to go back on the road with Sam, alive and whole again by some miracle, he left the Chevy binder behind with Lisa. After all, it wasn’t like it’d be of use on the road with them. Motels weren’t conducive to the kind of cooking he’d grown accustomed to living in an actual home. And he didn’t really want Sam to find it and figure out that Dean had been making his favorites and try to have a “talk” about it. After Dean had Cas remove Lisa and Ben’s memories of him, he went back into their house one final time. He took down pictures, deleted files, removed every last thing that might remind them that he existed and chucked it into a bag to throw away. Surprisingly, Sam didn’t push him to keep anything. He’d have expected Sam to give him crap for it and whine at him until he held on to at least one photo. But his brother just stood there and silently watched Dean remove any evidence of his life with Lisa and Ben, only speaking to offer help in carrying bags out to the trash.

Sam was taking the last bag out the garbage while Dean did his final circuit of the house, just to see if he’d missed anything. He found the Chevy binder hidden behind Lisa’s other cook books on the shelf. He held it for a minute, contemplating, and then shoved it to the bottom of the duffel bags containing the last few items of clothing he’s salvaged from the house. He didn’t tell Sam about it, and was careful to keep it hidden. Dean didn’t want to share how much he’d latched onto cooking the year he was living with Lisa. Didn’t want Sam to know how close he’d come to losing it. How learning to cook his dead brother’s favorite foods the way he’d always wanted to was the only thing that kept him from putting a gun in his mouth some days. Sam felt guilty enough about losing his soul and Dean having to leave a ‘normal’ life behind, no matter that had always been Sam’s dream, not Dean’s, and Sam finding out any of that was just begging for Sam to corner him into having a heart to heart that was sure to involve tears and hugging. Dean couldn’t even begin to describe how horrible that sounded. So he hid the binder and pretended like the year he spent learning how to cook never happened.


	3. The Bunker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bunker was everything Dean had ever secretly desired but never dared to hope he'd actually have. A home that could keep those he cared about safe, plus a full scale kitchen. Finally he could provide for Sam what he'd wanted to as a kid but never could. He just needs to keep his excitement over cooking on the down low, because like hell is Dean gonna let Sam catch on just how much feeding his kid brother makes him happy.

Dean was unable to hide his excitement at the bunker’s kitchen. The first thing Dean made for Sam in the bunker’s dated but serviceable kitchen was a burger. He figured they eat enough burgers it was a safe place to start. His heart burst with pride when Sam moaned in happiness as he took his first bite. Sam was eating his food. The one person he’d been wanting to truly feed his whole life was finally able to eat a decent meal that he had prepared. The meal was cut short by a case, but it was worth it when Sam carried the plate out with them.

Slowly Dean worked through the recipes that he’d collected in the Chevy binder. He didn’t cook every day, the habit of trading off whose turn it was to go out and pick dinner up too ingrained in both men. Dean did try to make something homemade at least once a week though. As Sam picked up that Dean could cook well, it increased in frequency until the only days they ate out were the ones where it was Sam’s “turn to cook.” Dean would be happy cooking every day, but the voice of John Winchester whispered in the back of his mind that there was something shameful in doing such an activity for pleasure. Taking care of Ben and paying Lisa back for putting up with him quieted that voice the year he spent with them. Somehow it was different living in a house with a family. The ghost of John’s dictates plagued him less. But being on the road with Sam, even with a bunker to call home, brought those hard learned lessons back to the forefront. So he and Sam divvied up who got food which days, and Dean never asked to get dinner more than his assigned days.

Sometimes the hunting lifestyle made keeping the kitchen stocked difficult. But Dean buried his shame of ‘just like when we were kids’ beneath false bravado at offering Sam peanut butter cups for dinner, and making a veritable feast for dinner the day after.

He did keep his old binder from his year with Lisa and Ben hidden in his room though. He supposed it’d make more sense for it to stay in the kitchen, but he really didn’t want to answer Sam’s questions about where it came from. So he made do with a picture of the recipe he wanted to make and referring to on his phone while cooking. He eventually got fed up with having to zoom in on pictures and trying to make sure the lighting in the photo didn’t wash out his handwritten notes and awkwardly asked Charlie makes a digital copy of his recipe book for him that he could access through his phone. She gave him a “really?” look when he asked her to do it and “because” was the only reason he gave when she asked why he couldn’t just keep the binder in the kitchen. She rolled her eyes at him and did it anyway, knowing better than to question the bizarre Winchester neurosis at this point. She made sure to include a search feature in the handy recipe book app she designed for him, and even made the icon look like the Chevy logo in homage to his binder, and so no one glancing at his screen would suspect what it really was.

Kevin and Sam weren’t idiots. They noticed that not only was Dean good at cooking, but that he seemed to genuinely enjoy it. They also knew him well enough to know that they could never let on to Dean that they knew. Kevin thought it was stupid, that they should just tell Dean to bust out the recipe book they know he had hidden somewhere and stop squinting at the stupid phone. Dean’s manly pride or whatever would recover just fine and then he’d stop giving himself headaches over reading recipes on a tiny screen. Sam explained to him about John, and Kevin eyerolled more than once, but eventually gave in and decided to keep up the act that they didn’t know about Dean’s not-so-secret hobby. They did, however, encourage it. Sam used the excuse of being out of it from the trials, and Kevin used the excuse of needing to translate the tablet to get out of cooking on their designated nights. Dean was always less stressed after cooking dinner, so they mutually conspired to get him to do it as often as possible. And the excuses they both used were relatively legitimate anyway. Sam figured giving Dean the food to focus on would be good for him since there was nothing he could do to help either of them. Not really.

Sam wasn’t wrong. It killed Dean that there was nothing he could do to help Sam or Kevin. He couldn’t help translate, he couldn’t take the toll of the trials away. Dean watched Sam and Kevin fall apart and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Other than keep them fed and safe. So that’s what he did. He made all Sam’s old favorites, and even learned a few of Kevin’s. He smiled watching the effect everything was having on them ease for just a few moments while they enjoyed their meals. The shadows under their eyes would always return, but, just for a little while at dinner, everything was okay. And Dean supposed he could live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got this fic idea from a few posts going around Tumblr about Dean learning to cook in the bunker, and Dean's eating habits, and Sam & Dean's financial situation as kids. I hope you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> * Wendy’s Value Menu debuted in 1989, wanting a way to get out of the “burger wars” of the late 1980s. “At that time, all of the hamburger chains were going after each other and it escalated to the point where we were seeing 99 cent Whoppers and Big Macs. These prices were on permanent signage, they weren’t being done as a limited-time promotion,” Lynch said. “From (Wendy’s) perspective, the market share battles were so intense that chains were discounting their flagship items.” So even though Burger King didn’t get a dollar menu until ‘98 and McDonalds didn’t until 2003, Dean would have still been able to find fast food chains selling burgers for $1 as a kid.  
> http://www.qsrweb.com/article/177960/The-evolution-of-the-value-menu


End file.
